Monday, November 29, 2010

I watched this movie yesterday. Just when you think you're being oppressed, you see other people have it worse. You see like-minded others with the same creative aspirations, the same dreams as you, struggling against barriers of repression and punishment that as an American, you will never have to endure. Compared to Iran, I don't know that bands in America realize how good they have it. These are just people trying to express themselves, same as us, and for the most part they can't do it without risking being jailed, fined, or lashed. Many can't get a passport either, so there's no escape. It's sad. Free-spirited guy that I am, I couldn't handle it. I know that I would try to escape, and if I couldn't I'd simply kill myself.

My favorite line in the movie was a lyric from an Iranian metal band: "The fence around your mind can't contain me." Those are the words of a true freedom guerrilla, and worth remembering. The man they belong to will likely never know the joy of expressing them in a place like America, where we're generally (but not always) free to voice our opinions without fear of censorship or punishment.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

"Let me ask you, do you know the difference between Tanzania and Goldman Sachs? Tanzania is a country that has a gross national product of 2.2 billion dollars and shares it between 25 million people. Goldman Sachs is an investment firm which has annual profits of 2.2 billion dollars and shares them among 161 partners. That's the world we're living in now."

There's a scene in this movie where several friends are at the table enjoying dinner. That is, until the conversation turns political. It's amazing how quickly everyone gets instantly upset arguing about what's what. It's a rather accurate portrayal of how volatile and sensitive people can be about their opinions, something I can relate to having been among them myself on more than one occasion. What stood out to me during the ensuing onscreen argument is how those opinions, though strongly felt and believed, are too often based on outright lies and misinformation that most of us often have very little ability to filter for actual truth. The result is that we end up fighting over nothing. Tempers flare, feelings get hurt, and somewhere in the world, people are ultimately dying over the same hidden truths . One can't help but feel that the future has been irrevocably fucked -- again.

Seeing this was yet another reminder to me to question what I know, especially what I think I know, because it's very easy to base it on sources that are dead wrong. We can't afford to be wrong anymore. We can't afford to take actions based on bullshit. There's too many lives at stake -- those in our immediate families, and those in our greater human family in other countries whose lives have been destroyed by our government lies.

In "What I Didn't Find in Africa," Joe Wilson writes of our duty to ensure that the sacrifice of American soldiers is for the right reasons. Sadly, those "right reasons" are still nowhere to be found. Our soldiers died for nothing, and the number of both military and civilian casualties is strikingly higher than it was in 2003. If only it were as easy to sacrifice the lives of those who profited off their deaths.

"The bold efforts the present bank has made to control the Government...are but premonitions of the fate that awaits the America people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution, or the establishment of another like it."

Saturday, November 13, 2010

"So the system has to be corrected, not print more money and give it to banks -- that doesn't deal with the problem.

The in group will do all it can to stay in power -- and that's what you gotta keep in mind -- they'll use the army and navy and lawyers or whatever they have to use, to keep in power. They're not about to give it up, 'cause they don't know of any other system that will perpetuate their kind."

I am searching for abstract ways of expressing reality, abstract forms that will enlighten my own mystery.

~ Eric Cantona

Liberty is the possibility of doubting, the possibility of making a mistake, the possibility of searching and experimenting, the possibility of saying No to any authority - literary, artistic, philosophic, religious, social and even political.

~ Ignazio Silone

No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.

~ Winston Churchill

We are searching for some kind of harmony between two intangibles: a form which we have not yet designed and a context which we cannot properly describe.

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong it's reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.

"Reporters asked the Pentagon, the Air Force, the Navy, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, the U.S. Northern Command and the Federal Aviation Administration what that thing in the evening sky was. But none of them knew."

~ John Pomfret, Washington Post

Wow, that sure is a lot of people who don't know anything. How reassuring. Good thing they're in charge.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

According to Plato's Apology, Socrates' life as the "gadfly" of Athens began when his friend Chaerephon asked the oracle at Delphi if anyone was wiser than Socrates; the Oracle responded that none was wiser.

Socrates believed that what the Oracle had said was a paradox, because he believed he possessed no wisdom whatsoever. He proceeded to test the riddle by approaching men considered wise by the people of Athens—statesmen, poets, and artisans—in order to refute the Oracle's pronouncement.

Questioning them, however, Socrates concluded that, while each man thought he knew a great deal and was wise, in fact they knew very little and were not wise at all. Socrates realized that the Oracle was correct, in that while so-called wise men thought themselves wise and yet were not, he himself knew he was not wise at all, which, paradoxically, made him the wiser one since he was the only person aware of his own ignorance.

Socrates' paradoxical wisdom made the prominent Athenians he publicly questioned look foolish, turning them against him and leading to accusations of wrongdoing.

Socrates defended his role as a gadfly until the end: at his trial, when Socrates was asked to propose his own punishment, he suggested a wage paid by the government and free dinners for the rest of his life to finance his time as Athens' benefactor(!)

He was, nevertheless, found guilty of both corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens and of "not believing in the gods of the state", and subsequently sentenced to death by drinking a mixture containing poison hemlock.

Socrates' last words: "Crito, we owe a rooster to Asclepius. Please, don't forget to pay the debt." Asclepius was the Greek god for curing illness, and it is likely Socrates' last words meant that death is the cure, and freedom, of the soul from the body.

Another interpretation is that Socrates was a voluntary scapegoat; his death was the purifying remedy for Athens’ misfortunes. In this view, the token of appreciation for Asclepius would represent a cure for the ailments of Athens.

If you kill a man like me, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Who cares what your "credit score" is? What do you think the credit score of the United States/Government is? Do you think there is any intention to ever "pay back" any of all that "borrowed" money?

No, because for something to be borrowed, it first has to be produced. Money is debt, and debt is not an actual product. It is an invention whose existence, authenticity, and authority has never been verified. It was nothing to begin with, so there's nothing to pay back.Yet money is god, whose existence is equally unverifiable. A lot of Americans really like God, so before anyone gets bent out of shape, I'm not saying there isn't one. Or more than one, for that matter. I'm saying the god we're told to trust every time we look at a $100 dollar bill is false, and this false god is destroying the world.

Ayn Rand wrote, "Money is the barometer of society's virtue...when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - then you will know that your society is doomed." What is virtue? Moral excellence. I don't think money is inherently evil, I think those who corrupt it by continually stripping it of value are evil, and so the only moral option is to destroy them.

The monetary system is a pyramid scheme, whose symbol is hidden in plain sight on the $1 bill. The pyramid requires constant input from the bottom to supply the top. The reason "it's lonely at the top" is because those living there are so greedy that no one else wants to be around them. The only way they can relate to other human beings is by enslaving us.

I say fuck the wall street pyramid priests and their money god. They are evil people who think nothing of sacrificing your life and this planet in order to make a profit. You are not a consumer. You are the consumed. Credit scores may seem like badges of integrity, but they are handed out by people who have no integrity. The ecocidal holocaust we live in is the result of serving these twisted masters who have deceived us with their invisible horseshit. Remember what Morpheus asked Neo in The Matrix: "Do you really think that's air you're breathing?"

If you have debt tied to your house or land, skip everything else the best you can and pay it off so you own it. If you can use your good credit score to access unsecured debt to complete the task, even better. Trade back nothing into the system in exchange for a place to live as a free human being. Then default. The only way your property can be taken from you after that is by force, which can be met with an equal or greater force of your own. Before you are attacked with force, defend with strategy. We teach other people how they're allowed to treat us. It's time for the Federal Reserve to learn.

This is the preemptive strike. We don't have to kill the king to win the game. We have to trap him on a square from which he cannot escape. We're deluding ourselves if we think we can win without sacrifice. I've been playing chess most of my life and I've never won without losing pieces. That's how it is, so that's what we have to do. I'm tired of seeing my friends, family, society and world destroyed by ruthless bastards. It's time to checkmate these fuckers.

No one can realize how substantial the air is, until he feels its supporting power beneath him. It inspires confidence at once.

~ Otto Lilienthal

Otto Lilienthal was a German pioneer of human aviation who became known as the Glider King. He was the first person to make well-documented, repeated, successful gliding flights.

On 9 August, 1896, Lilienthal's glider lost its lift and he fell from a height of 17 m (56 ft). He died of a broken spine the following day in Berlin, saying, "Kleine Opfer müssen gebracht werden!" ("Small sacrifices must be made!").

Lilienthal's research was well known to the Wright brothers, and they credited him as a major inspiration for their decision to pursue manned flight.

"Of all the men who attacked the flying problem in the 19th century, Otto Lilienthal was easily the most important. ... It is true that attempts at gliding had been made hundreds of years before him, and that in the nineteenth century, Cayley, Spencer, Wenham, Mouillard, and many others were reported to have made feeble attempts to glide, but their failures were so complete that nothing of value resulted." ~ Wilbur Wright

In September 1909 Orville Wright was in Germany making demonstration flights at Tempelhof aerodrome. He paid a call to Lilienthal's widow and on behalf of himself and Wilbur paid tribute to Lilienthal for his influence in aviation and on their own initial experiments in 1899.

Next time you fly, remember Otto's sacrifice with a "Vielen Dank" for the gift of flight from this great pioneer.

Thomas Edison's teachers said he was "too stupid to learn anything." He was fired from his first two jobs for being "non-productive." As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, "How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?" Edison replied, "I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps."

Bullets cannot be recalled. They cannot be uninvented. But they can be taken out of the gun.

There are things in me, of which I will not speak, that make me very, very sad. How do I overcome that which cannot be overcome? Why am I condemned to this wingless body when my heart already knows how to fly?

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.

~ Henry Ford

If banks can make money by being dishonest, why shouldn't we?
If they can exploit the rules of the system, why shouldn't we?
If they can rob us through inflation, why shouldn't we rob them through default?

I'm done pretending one can make an honest profit in a dishonest system. We don't owe the banks anything. They've been raping us for years and have been rewarded for it with bailout money from our pockets. The way I see it, they owe us.

Freedom isn't free. This time they can pay for it.

In 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote, "The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

Whose responsibility is it to seize our power and bring it back to health?

What the hell are we waiting for?

In the event the video has been removed, please view "Modern Money Mechanics" HERE. Thanks.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

The night before I saw "Inception," I went to see "Hereafter" starring Matt Damon, and directed by Clint Eastwood. They're both guys I like who've done lots of good work before, and this movie is no exception. My favorite type of film is action/adventure/sci-fi, but "Hereafter" is a more thoughtful and slower paced film that intrigued me because of its subject matter. What I found interesting while watching it was contemplating the mechanics of how strangers from different parts of the world can be connected without knowing it, and are driven to find each other based on common needs. I've always suspected there's something similar functioning in my own life, and I like thinking about those people I haven't met yet.

I'm not a movie critic or reviewer, movies are simply a form of inspiration that feed my imagination and creativity -- in essence, the wellspring of my life. The reason to see "Hereafter" is because it might make you realize something important you need to do for yourself. The day after I saw it, I bought a ticket to Iceland.

Why? Because I think in every human heart lives a long held dream, and the purpose of life is to experience it -- not in the hereafter, but in the here now.

Friday, November 5, 2010

The morning after seeing "Inception," I'm still thinking about it. I'm thinking about the mind as fertile soil, and thoughts as seeds. The seed of freedom is a single thought -- "I'm free." What happens if you plant that thought in your mind? What happens if you cultivate that thought and nurture its growth every day for the rest of your life? How might you change? What might you become?

I'm also thinking about everything in this life as a dream. The key to inception, I think, is to realize that you are awake inside of this dream, and though it may not be yours, you can create a new dream within it. You are free to defy the rules created by others whose dream you don't like living in, and go someplace else of your own making. In the song "Believe," Lenny Kravitz sings, "Being free is a state of mind." But this is no longer a matter of belief. Belief was just the bridge to help us walk back to a place of fertile soil. Back to planting the seeds of a new dream. In my dream, freedom is a forest where we all stand tall.

I finally saw "Inception" tonight. Simply incredible. I'm so glad I saw it on the big screen up close with a blasting soundtrack. Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio and Hans Zimmer are all geniuses. If you want an amazing mind blow, this is the one!

"Now that the value of modern money is becoming highly questionable, more and more people are turning to gold. It's not the new thing; it's a return to normal."

~ Shayne McGuire

No surprise that yesterday's move by the Fed for another $600 billion in "quantitative easing" (read: money printing campaign) is immediately showing up in the form of a $14 jump for gold this morning, now at $1363 as I write. I don't really know that much about economics, but four years ago this month, as an experiment I bought 3 ounces of gold, then at $654 an ounce. All it's done for the past 48 months is sit in a box, paying no interest. So how is it that I've "made" $709 per ounce? By default or intent, the dollar is obviously being destroyed.

Ben Bernanke and his crew don't give a shit about us. They are people who don't produce anything, and they don't have to, because in their system the money flows to them by graft instead of work. Those of us fortunate enough to still have jobs keep working for the same wages, but continue to lose money thanks to them. They reward themselves with the profit of their own corruption, while we are punished for trying to make an honest living. It's been like this since before I was born, but it was a long time into my adult life before I came to understand it. My understanding is still rudimentary, and I'm not very eloquent in explaining it, but I know the difference between reality and bullshit. My gold experiment proves it.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

I don't care what the Fed does. It won't work. Nothing can make me borrow more to spur growth that doesn't exist. Want a revolution for a truly free America? Then never borrow money again. Default on all your credit card debt and let the assholes who created this oppressive system drown in their own shit. Ayn Rand said, "Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think." Precisely. So think about it.